Local History: Tunican comes face to face with ‘Machine Gun Kelly’

Every week hundreds of people visit the Tunica Museum. Through the years we have recorded visitors from every state in the union and many foreign countries. Even before the bright lights of the casinos drew people here, there were notable people who for one reason or another passed through Tunica County.

The first “tourist” to spend time here was undoubtedly Hernando DeSoto. Certainly there was no tourism infrastructure in 1541, but our history books would tell us that DeSoto was impressed enough with this area that he spent considerable time here before he wore out his welcome.